The secure storage and controlled access to articles, such as keys is important in automobile dealerships, garages, hotels, rentals apartments, government agencies etc. In the case of automobile dealerships, the storing and safeguarding of license plates is also very important as in all situations where access to numbers of articles such as keys or other than keys having different sizes than keys must be restricted to particular persons or groups of persons and where it is important to know whether an article is in or out of storage. The acquisition of a customer's or user's personal information, or other types of information required to gain access to the articles, must also be quick, safe and accurate. The management of articles such as keys and license plates represents a serious problem in numerous businesses such as automobile dealerships. Often, a large number of vehicles, each having it's own individual key or keys, are present and several salesmen are employed who require access to the keys and or license plates of those vehicles. Certain salesmen may be allowed access to a limited number of the vehicles which they can access for sale or demonstration, while others may be permitted access to all vehicles except a chosen few high priced or specific vehicles to which only the manager or the owner of the establishment may have access. When a demonstration or a vehicle trial is desired, a dealer's license plate may be necessary to access public roads. Thus, controlled access to the assortment of dealer plates assigned to the establishment is also extremely important.
Typically all the keys of a dealership are merely hung up on a board, or placed in a system of envelopes, or in tag boxes. In some cases, the keys are simply left unorganized on desks etc. and the dealer plates are merely be piled loosely and unguarded on an open desk. This is dangerous, since unauthorized persons may gain access to keys and plates and use a vehicle without prior authorization and either damage or even misappropriate the vehicle.
Several attempts have been made to bring forth organizational systems for keys to rectify the problem of controlling access to multiple keys by multiple users of different authorization levels. Although the problem has somewhat been looked after as seen in the prior art, certain critical disadvantages are still inherent and troublesome. The adequacy of reporting, diagnostics, data archiving and data storage is still unacceptable in some prior art solutions.
The surface needed per article and the multitude of articles to be controlled poses a problem in flat surface cabinet type arrangements. This combines with the complex inter-wiring needed to accommodate several separate modules, each of which may be of a considerable size, to make this type of equipment of the prior art cumbersome and impractical for locations where the control of large quantities of articles is needed. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,609,657 and 6,131,808 disclose such systems. The mechanical complexity and somewhat less than reliable mechanical means combined with the necessity for external add-on tagging, labeling or other identification methods, or packaging poses obvious complications and problems. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,812,985 and 5,344,042 disclose such systems. In some prior apparatus designed for the use of controlling access to articles such as keys, unauthorized access to several articles not called for was possible. In other prior apparatus where articles such as keys are retained by rings or snaps retained by a locking mechanism, it was found possible to separate the keys from the retaining rings or snaps without authorization, making the reliability of the system dependent on the honesty of its users. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,801,628 and 6,195,005 disclose such systems. In U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,195,005 and 5,801,628 an attempt was made to further guard against dishonest removal of articles not called for by using further, more complicated add-ons which in some cases further reduced the storage capacity of the apparatus, while not entirely ruling out the possibility of unauthorized access. In some apparatus described in the prior art, an attempt was made to guard license plate, but due to the flat plane design storing method it is obvious the available space for storing normally intended articles is seriously hindered and critically reduced.
One known system addresses many of the abovementioned weaknesses of the prior art apparatus is disclosed in my previous Patents Canadian Pat. No. 1,263,167 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,212,649.
The problem of proper storage and safeguarding of articles other than keys, for example license plates, in one and the same apparatus however remains. Also, the need for repeated acquisition of user identification data through manual input interfaces makes user access somewhat lengthy, complicated and at times inaccurate or possibly incomplete due to language or dexterity limitations. For example, significant time is wasted in car dealerships with secured storage key cabinets by the users having to type in access data on a keyboard each time a key is to be removed from or replaced in the cabinet. Storing keys and license plates of cars in separate locations further slows down access to the desired vehicle. Speed of access and simplicity of operation are challenges, which have still not been satisfactorily addressed in prior art apparatus.
Accordingly, an improved article storage system is desired which allows for the secure storage and retrieval of different types of articles. A system is also desired which would simplify and speed up repeat access to stored articles.